


Crown & Country: Albion

by cruisedirector, Dementordelta



Series: Crown and Country [3]
Category: King's Speech (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: kings_speeches, Dreams vs. Reality, Escape, Honor, Intimacy, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Oaths & Vows, Royalty, Sappy, Schmoop, Scotland, Speech Disorders, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-29
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:06:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dementordelta/pseuds/Dementordelta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lionel and Bertie play "What If?" and end up answering their own question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something Impossible

**Author's Note:**

> For your own sake, read the tags and take them as warnings. This is the sappiest thing we have ever written and we are pretty sappy to begin with. It started as RP, which may be obvious from the pacing and dialogue-heavy storytelling, and will make no sense if you have not read the previous two parts of the "Crown and Country" series, though you can skip to part four, which is darker and more serious, without having read this part. When we wrote it, we had no intention of ever showing it to anyone else, so this bit goes a million miles from movieverse and ten million miles from real life, bearing no relation to reality or to the film's universe.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lionel keeps trying to warn Bertie that he's not as strong as Bertie thinks he is.

Bertie was only half-joking when he said it, though it was apparent that Lionel assumed he meant to be ridiculous:

"The only reason I don't mind being the king so much is that we never would have met if I hadn't been born a prince."

It had been a terrible week, what with the air raids and reports of an outbreak of influenza, which had proven so deadly during the previous war. Bertie was just as aware as the people who had initially thrown rubbish at Elizabeth when she turned up in the East End in her finery that he was extremely sheltered and protected compared to nearly all Englishmen at home and abroad.

Now, of all times, he had no business complaining, and he smiled apologetically at Lionel. But Lionel had realized that Bertie might have been serious, and his chuckle faded.

"We might have met," Lionel replied, shrugging a bit. "But we certainly wouldn't be here." He gestured around the room with its expensive furniture and locked door. "Your life would be very different."

"I might not have stammered if I hadn't been born a royal prince." Rolling a pen between his fingers since Lionel wouldn't permit him a cigarette, Bertie tried to imagine what his life might have been like if he'd had someone like Lionel for a father. It wasn't the first time, but it felt wrong to imagine being a blood relative of someone about whom he had such carnal feelings. If he said so, Lionel would probably tell him a psychiatrist would say Bertie had such feelings specifically because of his relationship with his royal parents, but Bertie knew that Lionel, too, had been surprised at the intensity of his own attachment, and Lionel would resist any attempt to attribute them to some deficiency in his own family.

However Lionel might have explained things, Bertie knew enough about Lionel's sons and home life to believe that very few children were lucky enough to have such a devoted father. "If I had a different life, I suppose we could have met somewhere other than your consultation room," he reflected. "Perhaps I would have gone to one of your plays."

Lionel smiled a bit ruefully, letting Bertie link his fingers through Lionel's, shifting a leg onto the sofa they were sharing. "I'm afraid none of my legion of admirers ever stuck around long enough to become a good friend," he said. "You might have found me very dull if we didn't have speech therapy in common."

"I doubt I would ever have found you dull. Perhaps I would have come to you for elocution lessons."

"To get rid o' your cockney accent, guv'nor?" Bertie couldn't help giggling at that, and after a moment Lionel joined him, though he was sighing. "I know how difficult your childhood was, but I wouldn't wish what I saw during the last war on anyone, and I can't imagine that, one way or another, you wouldn't have served."

As always, Lionel had managed to put things into perspective in a few short sentences. Bertie smiled at him gratefully. "You're right, of course. I would have served no matter what station in life I was born to. But I don't want to imagine that we might never have met. Perhaps you would have saved my life on a battlefield." In a different life, thought Bertie, he might have served in the army instead of the navy and been spared the seasickness that had aggravated his lifelong stomach troubles.

"The army turned me down. Said my shattered knee meant I couldn't march." Lionel stretched out his leg, pressing it against Bertie's, though there was no evidence through his trousers of the injury that had kept him from military service. "I suppose that, in a world where you weren't a prince, I might not have been stupid enough to fancy myself a footballer, and then perhaps they'd have taken me. Still, I think it's more likely that a strapping young man like yourself would have saved my life than the other way around."

"I can't imagine how I could have met you where it wouldn't somehow have led to us becoming friends." Smiling, Bertie let his head drop against the high back of the sofa. "It might have been easier to speak if we had met at the Armistice."

He felt Lionel's hand slide around the back of his neck, rubbing it, and heard Lionel's chuckle. "The Armistice? I've heard that people were celebrating in rather decadent ways."

"Precisely. I'm sure I could have persuaded you to come away with me. A hotel room in Marseilles, perhaps? I wouldn't have let you out of bed for a month."

Bertie was perfectly aware that by the time the war ended, Lionel had had a family, and that Lionel wasn't the sort to have gone off with any French girls let alone with a soldier. But Lionel laughed again, sliding his fingers through Bertie's hair, and went along with the fantasy. "It's a lovely idea. We could have come back to England together."

"Shared a flat, gone into trade. Or set up a practice -- I could be your receptionist." Bertie giggled again. "Do you think that, if we worked in the same place, we could keep our hands off each other for long enough to accomplish anything?"

Lionel's fingers twitched in his hair. "Perhaps we could keep our hands off each other during work hours if we knew we'd go home together. I might even have learned to cook properly."

Without opening his eyes, Bertie turned, pressing his face between Lionel's chin and chest, blocking out the finery of the palace which had never made him as happy as lying on a bed that was too small with Lionel holding him like this. "We could drive out to the country on weekends and have picnics in the grass where no one could see us."

"Maybe we'd move to the country. Fewer nosy neighbors." Lionel kissed his forehead. "I could grow vegetables. We could live very quietly." There was an odd tone to Lionel's voice, not wistful, exactly -- Bertie didn't think that Lionel would trade the life he had, with his wife and sons, for anything Bertie could offer him even in fantasy -- but uneasy. Lionel's laugh sounded forced. "Then we'd think, oh, if only we had a palace to live in, or a castle to visit at the end of the week."

"I doubt that. We'd have privacy. We'd listen to the king's speeches on the wireless and think what a sorry sod he must be."

"Don't ever think you're a silly sod." The edge to Lionel's voice was sharp as he sat back, looking at Bertie.

"I don't. If I was living in the country with you, one of my brothers would be the king." Bertie tried to smile, but Lionel was shaking his head.

"If you were not the king, the country, and the world, would be so much the poorer for it that it's painful for me to imagine _that_. I'm sorry it brings you so little pleasure, but I will never wish to imagine anyone else on the throne. You must understand how much your people love you and look to you. My family, my neighbors, the shopkeepers, the more highly credentialed doctors in Harley Street...all of them."

The passion in Lionel's voice, usually reserved for the bedroom, was unexpected. It made Bertie smile as he brought Lionel's hand to his mouth, kissing it. "It's bearable with you by my side. If people look to me, it's because they can understand me now, and that's due to you. Can't I dream about making love to you for a month in a dingy Marseilles hotel? And on the boat on the way home? And on the train to wherever we were going to live, beloved?"

Pain lanced across Lionel's features, as startling as his passion had been a minute earlier. "This is dangerous, Bertie."

"What --" Nervously, Bertie lifted his head, but nothing seemed amiss. "It's all right. The door's locked."

"That isn't what I mean." Lionel shook his head once more. "I can't pretend it's not --" He shuddered hard enough to rock the sofa. "-- not a fantasy I couldn't get lost in."

"So could I, love." Bertie touched his cheek, keeping his astonishment in check. He managed a smile. "If this king business doesn't work out, I need to know I have something to fall back on."

Lionel studied him for so long that Bertie felt the smile start to tighten his own jaw, stiffening his muscles, making him think that when he next spoke, he would surely stammer. But then Lionel nodded a bit and smiled back, relaxing. "Just be careful," he told Bertie with an echo of the earlier warning in his voice. "One day, one of us will forget what we can and can't have, and ask for something impossible. It will probably be me."

Always, in the Highlands, it felt safe to do and say things that Bertie would have stopped himself from considering in London. It wasn't just that there was no possibility of being overheard, sitting on the porch of the small cottage at the outskirts of the Balmoral estate. It was that the rest of the world felt so remote, he could nearly believe that time itself had been suspended, creating possibilities that couldn't exist elsewhere.

Which was why, when Bertie suggested sneaking into the stables to make love in the hay, and Lionel felt duty-bound to point out that Bertie hadn't done a single vocal exercise in two days, Bertie replied, "I'll catch up when we have to go back. I'll move into your office and practice night and day."

"Don't tempt me, love." Lionel chuckled, sipping wine, nudging his bare foot against Bertie's. "You'd make a lovely permanent fixture on my sofa. Much nicer to look at than the wallpaper."

"Anything would be nicer than that wallpaper. But I have a better idea -- you could move into the palace. Don't think I haven't thought about that."

"If you let Myrtle into the palace even for a few days, she'll refuse to leave. She'll turn me over to you and never miss me."

"I doubt that -- you're quite lovable. And I'm sure she'd want to keep you apprised of what she was up to. Your boys wouldn't mind living in the palace, would they?"

"Not if they could use the tennis court and the swimming pool." Lionel's foot stopped rubbing Bertie's. "I somehow doubt your family would spare you as easily."

"Perhaps not, but a man may dream. Having you by my side is a very seductive idea."

There was a long silence, punctuated by the music of songbirds and insects. "Sometimes, sweetheart," Lionel said finally, "I'm afraid you're harboring the delusion that I'll always be strong enough to accept that it's only a dream."

Something had shifted in the past few months, since the conversation about the life they might have shared had Bertie not been born a prince. Always before, Bertie had refrained from saying such things because he'd thought they would embarrass Lionel for being so excessive in their sentimentality.

Now Bertie felt a perverse urge to keep saying them, even though he knew that they troubled Lionel...not because Lionel did not share the sentiments, but because Lionel did share them. Bertie supposed that it was cruel to need that reassurance when he knew it upset Lionel, but the words kept slipping out. They never made him stammer.

"I shall be strong enough, then," he assured Lionel. "I know you will be for me, when I need you to be."

"Or at least I'll know when the conversation has turned much too serious, and we should go back to plotting to defile the royal stables."

"Those stables are ripe for defiling. And we are just the men to do it." With great enthusiasm, Bertie began to describe the hayloft, and the conversation was forgotten until, hours later -- with straw prodding him in unaccustomed places, and sticking up at wild angles from Lionel's hair -- Bertie grinned and said, "Well, I hope that wasn't too much of a disappointment."

"I've never been disappointed in anything I've done with you. In any way. Not for a moment."

Smiling again, Bertie began to pick stray bits of hay from Lionel's body. "You could have been. I'm not all that fine a catch. Even my wife didn't think so when I started to court her."

Lionel stared down at him wide-eyed, then roared with laughter. "You're completely barking."

"I most certainly am not. I'm told I'm only tolerable-looking, and you already know about the temper. And the stammer."

"I haven't seen any evidence of your temper in months. And the stammer is what brought you to me." Lionel rolled his eyes. "And what idiot told you that you're only tolerable-looking?"

"Everyone who ever saw me next to David. He was the good-looking one."

Snorting a bit, Lionel shifted around to slide his fingers through Bertie's hair, knocking loose a straw that was poking his scalp. "He was the heir to the throne. You must have noticed how that title adds instant appeal."

"You're very good for me, you know." Humming a bit, Bertie kissed Lionel's wrist.

"I don't know whether to be sorry you weren't better exposed to people outside your fishbowl when you were younger, or grateful that you think I'm special because you had so little experience outside the fishbowl. Other people would have loved you for yourself, you know." Bending over, Lionel planted an upside-down kiss on his mouth.

"I'll never know. I can't change who my parents were. It only matters that you love me for who I am, even if I had never been a prince." Rubbing his face against Lionel's hand, Bertie kissed him back. "I can't regret anything that I am, or am not, if it's the man you love."

Chuckling, Lionel reached for his shirt. "I don't want you to change -- I just wish you were happier. And that _I_ might have been a better catch -- I'm nearly an old man."

"You're the perfect catch." Bertie reached out, stroking his fingers over Lionel's bare chest before Lionel could start to dress. "You're patient and loving and so tempting that I feel compelled to make love with you in haylofts, even if it means getting hay in places I'm sure hay was never meant to go."

"Now I know you're truly biased." Lionel grinned again. "I'm sure there are more comfortable places to defile all around the place."

"There are, and I want to defile all of them." Bertie's own grin was naughty. "There's nowhere in the world I don't want you to bugger me."

Laughing, Lionel passed Bertie his shirt, helping pick hay out of the material. "That might take some time. We'd have to be very careful sneaking in and out of Berlin. And the South Pole might be a bit difficult..."

"Why? We could build an igloo and be snowed in for six months." Bertie had to giggle when Lionel leaned over to kiss his belly, blowing air over it. "Or aren't the igloos in the north?"

"We'll have to do it at both poles, then."

"That suits me. We can sail around the world. As it happens, I have a very nice boat at my disposal. We can sail as far away as we like."

"Oh, sweetheart." Lionel's cheek rested on his belly. "We're getting into dangerous territory again."

"Everything is dangerous with you, beloved." Reaching down, Bertie threaded his fingers through Lionel's hair, stroking it, trying to tilt his head up so he could look at his face. If only he could have shut himself up, he could have prolonged the romantic mood, perhaps even convinced Lionel to have another go, but the words slipped out thoughtlessly. "With you, I see what would compel a man to throw away his heritage to be with the person he loves. I would run away with you in a heartbeat if we could."

He could feel as well as hear Lionel's breath catch, and feel the heat that flooded Lionel's face where it rested against him. "That isn't who you are, love. And that isn't who I am." The ferocity in the voice was, as always, unexpected. "You wouldn't leave your girls, or your wife, no matter what you might say when we're alone. It has nothing to do with being a king, either -- your being a king has made it possible for us to do things that are against the law and condemned by every level of society. If we were ordinary bankers or salesmen with families, it wouldn't be any easier."

Lionel rarely raised his voice, yet Bertie often found he was grateful when Lionel did. The things that could stir Lionel to such vehemence often helped Bertie put things into perspective, now that he knew enough to listen instead of stalking away in a fury and spending weeks afterward mired in regret. This time, he knew at once that Lionel was right, and the painful truth brought the usual strange sense of comfort. "I've told you before, you're so very good for me," he murmured, stroking a hand down Lionel's face.

Which was wet.

"And I've told you, I am not as strong as you think I am." The passion was not gone from Lionel's voice, but it was shaking as he buried his face against Bertie's hip, avoiding his eyes. "This is enough, isn't it? Tell me it's enough."

Bertie was already tugging him up, his own hands trembling, kissing every part of Lionel within reach of his mouth. "It's enough, beloved. I never dreamed we would have this much. I never thought you'd want it, and even when I knew you did, I never hoped you would give me this much of yourself. We can come here and be alone, in absolute privacy; we can make love until we're too weak to stand. I can meet with you in London, you can come to the palace." He knew he was clinging, but at least Lionel was letting him. "I won't lie to you, I'm not sure a thousand lifetimes would be enough, but what we have now is enough for this one."

Lionel's jaw tensed and relaxed against him as Lionel swallowed. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I never thought we would have this much either -- I never thought you'd want this much with me. I try not to be greedy." He tilted his head for Bertie's fingers as Bertie trailed them along his jaw line. "You know I would do anything for you. I'd be your cook and your valet and your dresser and your secretary."

"You do -- you do everything for me. You've been all those things while we've been up here, and I am happier than any dreams I used to have of a happy life. You have to forgive me if I imagine giving you everything because of what you give me."

Lionel shuddered softly, but his eyes were open and he even managed a bit of a smile. "There's a great deal I can give you only because you were lucky enough to inherit this place in the hills," he pointed out.

"It's only fair that I offer you something in return for all you do for me. I hope vows of eternal love and places to commit wanton acts of sodomy are enough." Bertie had managed to make Lionel huff a laugh, and squeezed him close again. "I never want to disappoint you."

Lionel pressed a kiss to his forehead. "You asked me before if I was disappointed. I want to be sure you know I've always felt the opposite. You will never disappoint me in any way." His fingers stroked through Bertie's hair. "You aren't disappointed if I -- well, when I go to pieces like that? One day, when you joke about running away together, I'll be able to laugh."

Shaking his head, Bertie let his fingers drift across Lionel's chest, feeling Lionel's nose come to rest in his hair. "I don't mean to joke about it. I've imagined running away with you for so long that it feels safe to say it when we're together, especially here, where it feels like we _have_ run away together."

He thought that Lionel was troubled for the moment by the fact that Balmoral and everything on the estate was Bertie's. Even if Lionel had forgiven him for that horrible time when Bertie had tried to shut him out, Lionel had never forgotten it, and Bertie supposed that it must never feel as safe to Lionel when he knew that Bertie had the power to do it again. Bertie wanted to explain that the property belonged to his family and Lionel was so much a part of what he considered his family, in spirit if not in name, that he would never again push Lionel away or hurt him in any way.

Yet when he spoke, after burying his face in Bertie's hair and breathing in deeply, Lionel said, "When we're together like this, it does feel like we've run away. But that never makes me feel safe, because..." Lionel's voice caught in his throat as though he were the one with the stammer. "...if you wanted me to, if you offered me that boat, or that igloo, if you asked me to run away with you forever...I might do it."

A tear splashed onto Bertie's forehead, and Bertie felt moisture in the corners of his own eyes. "I..." He knew what he had to say. What Lionel expected him to say. Probably even what Lionel wanted him to say, given how loyal Lionel was to his family and his country, and knowing that Bertie felt the same way no matter what he might dream at moments outside of time in a hayloft. But the words stuck on his tongue.

Lionel's fingers trembled in Bertie's hair as Lionel shook his head, and Bertie couldn't look at him.

"I...can't ask you."

"I know, love." He felt Lionel slump a bit and he clung, shaking, as Lionel kept petting his hair. At least Lionel's breathing was steady once more, his hands firm and soothing, now that Bertie was the one fighting not to weep, only moments after having been so certain that he would never hurt Lionel again.

He had to clear his throat to speak, and his voice shook terribly. "Now I have disappointed you."

"Oh, Bertie, of course you haven't." Warm fingers swept across Bertie's face, brushing away the tears, and as Lionel leaned back, Bertie could see that he looked more relieved than wounded. "But now I hope you understand why I can't joke about running away."

Nodding, Bertie tried to smile before realizing that he was probably grimacing grotesquely; he hid his eyes against Lionel's shoulder instead. "I wish I could promise never to do it again. I know I'll keep the image in my head of you on the deck of a yacht, and sometimes the words may slip out of my fantasy."

"It's all right. I know I'm terribly selfish, because it makes me ridiculously glad to know you think about it, even if you wouldn't do it." A huff of breath warmed Bertie's scalp as Lionel kissed the top of his head. "It wouldn't make either of us happy if we did, you know. You would be a different person if you were the sort who would truly consider running away from anything, for any reason."

"You have always understood that. Even when sometimes I didn't, myself." Bertie gave his shoulder a brief kiss. "There is nothing in my power I wouldn't give you, always know that. And you have all the power in the world over me."

He knew what Lionel was going to say before Lionel said it, and knew as well that he'd wanted Lionel to say it, even though Lionel spoke lightly, as if it could ever again be only a joke. "Does that mean you'd run away with me, if I asked?"

Bertie didn't hesitate. Before Lionel had finished speaking, he was nodding. "Yes."

Lionel clutched at him so tightly that he couldn't breathe, though Lionel didn't seem to be able to breathe either, he was shaking so hard. "I won't ask," he managed to whisper. "You should chop off my head just for thinking it."

"I'd have to chop off my own head as well, and then where would we be? It makes me just as glad to know you think about it. It's more than enough."

They lay silently in the hayloft for a long time. A sharp piece of hay caught between them poked Bertie's hip, yet he couldn't bear to move apart even the small amount necessary to dislodge it. A kind of exhausted contentment crept over him. Eventually he realized that Lionel felt heavier as well against him.

His words slurred a bit as he spoke. "I don't need to run away with you. We have this."

Lionel let his head fall back enough to give him a sleepy smile. "Tell me that we can keep having this, sometimes. Where I don't have to pretend it isn't the most precious thing in my life."

Bertie thought back to the first time they had kissed, as though he had been waiting for something his entire life and had never known what it was until that moment. He was certain that they had had to have the lives they had lived before this to have found one another here and now.

And that everything in his life had been worth it to find Lionel.

"I promise, beloved," he said, knowing Lionel would understand that from a king, the words could mean no less than a vow.


	2. Espousal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bertie tells Lionel his most impossible fantasy, which Lionel doesn’t think is impossible at all.

"I wish you could come with me to the State Opening of Parliament," Bertie told Lionel, sitting back in the tub with a smile and pushing a white bishop a few spaces diagonally across the board.

"You've never had any trouble with those speeches. Legislative agendas, bills, state visits...you could be reading a laundry list." Leaning over from his perch on the closed toilet seat, Lionel frowned at the board, then nudged a pawn forward.

"I don't want you to come for the speech."

When he glanced up, Lionel caught Bertie's wicked expression and couldn't help laughing. "In the House of Lords? To think you've accused _me_ of showing too little respect for the institutions of authority."

"We missed our opportunity to misbehave in Saint Edward's Chair. All right, perhaps the House of Lords itself would be too challenging even for the king. But they do bring me there in a horse-drawn carriage..." Bertie laughed too, knocking over Lionel's knight as he reached to move his queen.

"We'll have to put it on our lengthy list of impure thoughts about inappropriate behavior in inappropriate venues." Lionel jumped a pawn and took Bertie's rook, knowing that he would lose the knight on the next turn, and in all likelihood the game. They were neither of them very adept chess players.

"But your king finds that delightful, not inappropriate. Suppose he asks that you show the proper respect for the institution of the monarchy by indulging his person with your most impure thoughts." Bertie was smiling as his queen retreated, seemingly unaware of the danger posed to the rest of the board by Lionel's little wooden horse.

"Even though the king may look terribly undignified being buggered over his own desk, that fine piece of furniture that once belonged to his great-grandmother?"

"The king is much less worried about his dignity than you are. He's certainly not the first king to indulge in such vices. Even with a man."

Neither of them ever talked much about that particular aspect that made their connection particularly dangerous. Lionel thought with shame sometimes of how easily at one time he had used vulgar names in reference to men who preferred the company of other men, never believing it to be real love until it happened to him. "I didn't worry about the king's dignity in the car traveling here," he pointed out with a rueful smile. "Or in his bedroom in that fine castle up the hill. But perhaps we shouldn't treat Westminster Abbey with any greater disrespect than stolen kisses." The smile turned more gleeful as Lionel captured a pawn. "Check."

"You want to do it in Westminster Abbey? Oh, you are depraved. It might not be impossible for the king, but as the head of the Church, it would be very wicked." Bertie lifted his queen, then paused, glaring at the board.

"You need to move that king out of danger." With a chuckle, Lionel pushed the white chess piece out of harm's way. "I don't want to do it in Westminster Abbey. It's an entertaining fantasy, but perhaps too impious even for my unorthodox faith, and much too risky for you."

"You always take such good care of me." Smiling, Bertie blew a handful of soap bubbles at Lionel. They stuck to his robe and drifted onto the chess board, where they left wet rings as they popped. "I wish I could fulfill every one of your fantasies."

"Most of them are fleeting and silly compared to the reality of being here with you like this. Don't you know how entertaining I find it to play chess in a bathtub?" Lionel let his queen settle inside one of the damp circles on the board. "Check."

"Not as entertaining as taking a steamship with me to America. We'd be gone for weeks."

Clearly, Bertie was loath to let that particular fantasy go, even though Lionel had pointed out dozens of times that merely the gossip about the king needing his speech therapist with him on such a voyage would make the cost of the journey too great. "My point was that I don't expect to act out every fantasy we have," Lionel insisted. "I'm very happy just to be with you.

Bertie glanced up to see whether he'd upset him, then returned Lionel's smile, looking relieved. "As long as you don't mind if I share every fantasy I come up with, and make as many of them come true as I can," he said. "I love thinking of all the ways we can please each other." He leaned over the tub side for a kiss.

"So do I, love. There's no one in my fantasies but you. Even the impossible ones." Lionel watched Bertie make the only move left to him, and slid his own bishop forward. "I think that's checkmate."

"You cheated. You distracted me with talk about desecrating Westminster Abbey."

"Who started the conversation about misbehaving in the Houses of Parliament?" Grinning, Lionel caught Bertie's king as Bertie tossed it to him, then swept the rest of the pieces into their velvet bag. "That may be an even more impossible fantasy than sneaking off to the South Pole, or what's the place from that novel -- Shangri-la."

"I will admit defeat on those particular wishes, but I still want to hear anything you come up with. Get in the tub with me."

The tub was barely large enough to hold one man comfortably, let alone two, but Lionel willingly shed his robe and stepped in among the bubbles. Bertie moved his legs together so that Lionel's could straddle them and they sat practically chest to chest in the warm water.

"That's better. Now, what's your most outrageous fantasy?"

"Going to the moon," Lionel said at once. "No one would ever interrupt us there. What's yours?"

"What a vivid imagination you have. Mine is never as outrageous as making love on the moon, but you know I would love to have you on one of the tours. Imagine crossing the ocean together and sneaking away to see the sights of America together."

Lionel felt his breath catch. He was always torn between wild joy and ragged grief when Bertie dreamed aloud about something they would never have in this life. "Oh, love. It's almost as outrageous as making love on the moon. You know why I couldn't go."

"I know." Bertie's smile was suddenly as wobbly as Lionel's. "But I've thought about it every time I've had to travel anywhere without you. I couldn't help wishing you were with me."

They slid together, legs bent awkwardly, as Bertie's arms went around Lionel's waist and Lionel's fingers threaded into Bertie's hair. "It would be much too dangerous. Sooner or later, one of us would take a risk we should both know better than to dare. You know I can't be around you and not want to do everything with you."

Bertie kissed his face. "We'll come here, then. We'll always have this."

"I know we will -- you promised me. Don't be sad, I can't bear it."

With a soft sigh, Bertie nodded, sitting back to smile wistfully. "No more outrageous dreams, then. I'll only have naughty domestic fantasies from now on."

"They don't all have to be naughty." Lionel chuckled. "Most of mine don't involve being wicked in public places. They're rather sweet and traditional. You might even find them dull."

"That sounds romantic, not dull. I have daydreams like that as well." Bertie raised a handful of bubbles in the air and blew on them, sending them floating over Lionel's head and watching them descend. He looked both shy and full of hope as he added, "Even ones where we get married."

It was like the first time Bertie had kissed him, and the first time Bertie had asked Lionel to make love to him, and the first time Bertie had said without joking that he wished they could run away together...like Bertie had broken Lionel's heart and put it back together, stronger than before, but still raw with pain that seared Lionel's chest and throat. He closed his eyes, his voice hoarse. "Oh, sweetheart. You're determined to make me cry."

"Don't, love." Lionel could hear the distress in Bertie's voice as Bertie's arms came back around him, pulling him close. "I only want to make the happiest of memories with you. I don't want..."

"This is the happiest of memories. Don't take it away from me." In Lionel's urgency, the words sounded harsh in his own ears, but he was terrified that Bertie would call the words back or claim he hadn't meant them. If Lionel, too, had ever had such a fantasy -- and didn't he, buried somewhere so deep he didn't even let himself look at it except in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep, when he was certain that neither Bertie nor Myrtle nor God was paying attention -- he could never have imagined confessing it out loud. Not when even in Lionel's most outlandish fantasies he couldn't forget that Bertie was meant to be the King of England.

Bertie's cheek brushed against his own. "I knew you'd think I was mad if I told you."

"Not mad. Or the best sort of madness...the lunatic, the lover, and the poet. Don't mind me. You know I cry when I'm happy." Lionel felt Bertie's nod against the side of his face and relaxed a bit, out of the grip of the terror and awe of the words, slowly coming to awareness of the enormity of the gift Bertie had just given him. He had nothing to offer in return; he knew of no joy that could possibly be as great, though perhaps they could share this one, and that would be enough. His hands slid up Bertie's back. "Tell me the rest. Where do we get married?"

"Are you sure you...?" Lionel nodded, squeezing him, and Bertie let out a choked, self-conscious laugh. "You'll think I'm a lunatic, not a poet."

"Please. Tell me anyway."

"All right. I know it's ridiculous. And my wife may be able to forgive me for sharing your bed, but she would think this was a true betrayal."

Nodding, Lionel reached up to stroke his hair. He couldn't begin to imagine what his own wife would say -- sleeping with the king was one thing, but wishing to sail away with him, even temporarily, was something else. "Where?" he asked again.

"Outdoors. Under a rose-covered arbor."

"An imaginary one or a real one?"

Bertie's face grew warm against Lionel's. "A real one. Not far from here, in the gardens on the other side of the castle."

"Right here in Scotland?" Somehow that detail seemed a more intimate confession than the wedding fantasy itself. "What are we wearing?"

"Kilts. Don't laugh -- it's been my dearest wish. We're both in traditional kilts, and we say vows, and kiss."

Lionel couldn't have laughed if he'd wanted to; it was taking too much effort not to weep. Shivering, he held on to Bertie. "It sounds lovely."

Then he knew what he _could_ say, though it was far more mad than Bertie's fantasy.

"We could do it, you know. Much more easily than sailing to America together. I'm sure that somewhere in all those closets in the castle, there must be spare kilts. We could pin them on and walk out to the gardens. We'd have to do without priests and witnesses, but I'd swear eternal love and fealty and anything else you've imagined."

Bertie pulled as far back as the tub permitted, staring at Lionel, who realized then that he'd gone too far. It was one thing for the king to dream out loud, but for a commoner to presume --

"We -- we could, couldn't we?" Bertie's mouth closed and opened again. "Are you saying you'd actually be willing -- not just willing. That you'd actually want to?"

Swallowing, Lionel forced himself to meet Bertie's eyes. "I wouldn't ask you to be forsworn. I know you made vows, as the king, and to your wife..."

Bertie was shaking his head, looking very earnest. "You know how seriously I take my vows. If you let me, I can promise to love you with all my heart. I can promise to treasure every moment we spend with one another. I can promise to be faithful to the love we've found together. I can't promise to serve and obey, but I can promise to comfort and keep you for as long as we live." Bertie's hands rose, cupping his face, brushing Lionel's cheekbones and sweeping away the tears Lionel hadn't realized had spilled out of his eyes, so focused had he been on Bertie's words. "Will it be enough?"

There was no way for Lionel to speak without sobbing. He didn't care. Pressing his hands over Bertie's to keep them against his face, he nodded. "More than enough. More than I dreamed."

Warm lips pressed his own as Bertie kissed him to silence. "Then be the husband of my heart. Everything we've done has been outside the law -- I don't mind if this is, if you'll promise me the same things. You know I will keep any vow we make together."

Kissing was easier than speaking. Lionel did so again and again, until the shaking in his chest had transformed into laughter and joy had stopped his tears. "I will. In kilts or anything else you'd like."

"Getting married is my fantasy. You can choose what we wear." Now Bertie was sniffling a bit, though he hadn't stopped smiling. "Or if we wear nothing, since it will have to be done in absolute privacy. It's funny, I've imagined doing it, but I've never imagined asking you -- I couldn't have presumed that you would say yes."

"I wouldn't have dared imagine it. You've always been braver than I am. Those are sentiments I might have felt, but would never have dared to risk putting into words, for fear I might slip up and say them aloud."

"We'll be careful." Bertie stroked his fingers over Lionel's face. "If we've kept the rest of our secrets, we can keep this one. I love having such wonderful secrets with you. Maybe in some future life we won't have to keep it a secret -- I'd shout it out to the world if I could."

Bertie dreamed aloud about future lives so often that Lionel was beginning to think Bertie actually believed in them. He reached for a towel, getting up on his knees so he could drape it over Bertie's shoulders. "I'll promise you anything. You know that. I'll promise you impossible things if it will make you happy."

"But I want possible things with you." Nudging the plug loose with his toes, Bertie got to his feet, wrapping a towel around Lionel in turn. "I want the things we can have right now, and I want to think about the things we can't. And you can be as greedy as you like. I'll give you everything I can."

"Pastries," Lionel said slowly. Always he was careful not to ask for too much, yet Bertie had never shown the least distress when Lionel had said something he thought would be outrageous, like just before. He smiled, suddenly wicked. What did it matter? "We should have a feast. We should have the kitchen send over -- I don't know, what do people eat in Scotland at weddings? Angus beef and venison and oat cakes?"

"Oh, yes." Bertie was smiling back, his voice slightly breathless. "I'll call up to the castle and tell them we're rehearsing some sort of elaborate dinner presentation. We can have a feast!" He laughed, sliding his arm around Lionel's waist and waltzing him around. "And we should dance. Why didn't you ever dance with me when you told me to get continuous movement for my speech?"

"I thought you would think it an unconscionable liberty if I were to ask you to dance with me." Bertie swung him around again and Lionel couldn't help laughing with him, as thrilled and exhilarated as he had felt the first time Bertie had kissed him.

"It would have been like this. Buoyant." Bertie twirled him exuberantly again, out of the bathroom and toward the little kitchen. "Talking about feasting has made me hungry. Let's eat something and plan."

All the spinning had made Lionel a bit dizzy, or perhaps Bertie's words had done that. He wrapped both arms around Bertie, swaying with him, face resting against his shoulder. "I've felt buoyant since before your coronation."

"This much happiness can't be contained here on earth." Bertie swayed with Lionel, rubbing their feet together. Pressed against Bertie, Lionel couldn't help sighing blissfully, inhaling the scent of soap bubbles clinging to his skin. "I think we must be in heaven."

"I wake up each morning here and can't believe I haven't dreamed all of this." Lionel raised his head, wanting to see Bertie's smile, to assure himself yet again that it was real. "I have to touch you and kiss you to be sure you aren't going to disappear."

"You know I have to kiss you when you say things like that." Bertie's mouth lowered to Lionel's. "I never get enough of your kisses. I should have kissed you that first day in your office."

"I'm not sure it would have helped your speech if you had. But I can't remember a time when my pulse didn't jump from seeing you come into the room."

"You know just how to make me breathless." Raising Lionel's hand, Bertie kissed the wrist. "I'm replete with happiness when I'm with you. Surely that must be what heaven is like."

Lionel had given little thought to whether what they were doing was sinful. They weren't hurting anyone, their families didn't feel betrayed, the nation wasn't any worse for it, and Bertie was a better king when he was happy. If there was another life, however, then Lionel could only believe that they would be judged by love, whatever form in Earth or Heaven it might take. He squeezed Bertie's fingers, then his waist. "The Devil can take my soul if he wants it -- I'd choose you over all the world," he murmured.

"The Devil can't have your soul. It belongs to me. As mine belongs to you. You're part of me now. So we're destined for heaven together." With another happy sigh, Bertie released Lionel, turning to the stovetop and the kettle. "Make me rarebit?" he asked with a smile.

If Bertie's cooks knew that his most frequent requests in the kitchen were for cheese, toast, and eggs, Lionel thought they might despair. Grinning, he reached for the bread. "All right, since we'll be eating venison and pheasant tomorrow. I appreciate that you're such a romantic."

Chuckling, Bertie set cups on saucers, then reached for the teapot. Making tea might be his single culinary talent, but it was a task he performed with enthusiasm. "I never thought of myself as one before. You're the romantic -- you're the one who can recite poetry."

Myrtle had always been enchanted by Shakespeare, but she wasn't as receptive as Bertie to tearful declarations of love, which embarrassed her. "No one ever encouraged me the way you do," admitted Lionel as he watched butter, cheese, and mustard melt together. "Besides, the poetry isn't mine."

"I know the words aren't yours, but when you say them to me, I hear the truth of them as though you'd written them."

Bertie's smile was a bit shy, and Lionel found his chest constricting once more. "Sweetheart, I mean every word when I recite to you."

He felt Bertie's lips brush his cheek. "That's why I love it when you do. It's why I will cherish and keep any words we give each other, whether or not it's truly a wedding vow."

"You've already given me -- I can't think of anything I'd want you to vow that you haven't, already." Lionel paused to catch his breath, bending to put the bread into the broiler. "Tell me what you want of me that I haven't already given you."

"Your heart. Your love." Bertie took the kettle off the heat but set it down again so that he could put his hands on Lionel's face. "That's all I've ever wanted. Mine have been yours for so long -- I've felt married to you in my heart since the first time we made love."

The shock and wonder of that first night would never diminish, thought Lionel, no matter how long they lived or how many times they repeated the act -- the discovery that the urge that had sprung up between them was rooted not only in the exuberance of friendship and lust, but in a sort of love Lionel had never known, nor had realized could grow so deep. "Hearing you say that makes me happy enough to burst into song," he murmured, feeling his face grow warm in Bertie's hands.

With a wide grin, Bertie released him to pour water into the teapot. "‘Mad About the Boy' perhaps?" he asked.

It was hard to hum while bursting into laughter. "‘I Can't Give You Anything But Love.' I wake up humming that sometimes." Lionel managed a few notes. "Though in some way, ‘Swanee River' will always be our song."

"How I love you, how I love you, Liiiiionel," Bertie sang off-key, watching Lionel put the toast on plates. "It's a sad song, isn't it? When we're old folks we'll come here and you can sing something happy for me."

There were still a few apples in the basket. Lionel put them on the plates with the toast before carrying them to the table, setting them down and waiting for Bertie to bring the tea. "I think I recite much better than I sing, but I shall always do anything you ask of me, love."

Bertie slid his hand over Lionel's as he set down a teacup. "Marry me, then."

Being asked so directly nearly made Lionel choke up again. He focused on the joy of it -- on the uninhibited happiness on Bertie's face -- already nodding, gripping Bertie's hand. "Yes. I'll always say yes. I have no idea whether it will count for anything in the eyes of God, but if there's some chance that it will, I want to make sure all of Heaven is listening."

"I'm so glad. Not because I don't know you love me, but because I love the idea of it." Bertie was smiling, stroking the back of Lionel's hand. "We'll make sure God knows we mean forever."

"God must know I mean it already. I have only half a soul without you."

"It won't be Westminster Abbey, but the rose arbor will be all ours." Beaming, Bertie half-rose, looking through the handful of bottles on the floor of the pantry since the cottage had nowhere else to store wine. "No champagne, we'll have to make do with this. But we should have a wedding toast."

Laughing, shrugging, Lionel said, "Westminster Abbey's a bit stuffy, anyway. Better for stolen kisses than stolen vows of marriage." He paused, his face flushed with pleasure. "You are the most romantic man I know of -- even more than Shakespeare. I didn't think you could possibly make me happier than I was this morning."

"I want to look at you for the rest of my life and know you said those words to me and I said them to you. That will make me happier than anything." Bertie returned his smile, kissing Lionel with lips warm with tea, before turning his attention to the food. "It will be very romantic. It will make me smile every time I smell roses, or see roses, or think of roses. I want to know that I belong to you in all the ways I can. Two men could never be happier."

"Two people couldn't be happier. Does it bother you that I'm a man?"

"Not even a bit. You were the person my heart wanted, and I'm very glad I listened to my heart." Bertie talked around bites of toast, licking cheese from his fingers, as uninhibited about the table manners he'd chosen to ignore as he was in bed about the desires he'd once known better than to express. "I only ever worried about your being a man because I thought you might think making love with another was a crime, or a sin, or both."

"Nothing we have ever done has felt sinful or criminal. I love you exactly as you are -- this couldn't have happened to me with anyone else." Lionel could only pick at his toast. He felt full, replete, as if the possibility of ever being unsatisfied had receded from the world. "If there's one thing the Bible is very clear about, it's that love matters more than anything else."

"And I love you more than anything else. If it's wrong in the eyes of the law or the Church, then the law and the Church are wrong. You are very good for me, and that must be good for the country." Pushing his own plate aside, Bertie frowned at Lionel's. "You aren't eating."

"I'm too happy to be hungry."

In a gesture that was somehow graceful and naughty at the same time, Bertie scooped some of the cheese onto his finger and offered it to Lionel's lips. "I never knew happiness like this existed. But I don't want you fainting tomorrow -- we have to walk to the far side of the gardens. I know I'll be too excited for breakfast."

With a chuckle, Lionel licked the finger clean, swallowing the cheese. "I always thought I was happy before. I felt lucky just to know you, before. To be invited to this house..."

"This is our house," Bertie interrupted, pushing a bite of toast into Lionel's mouth. "The property belongs to my family, and you're part of my family -- I decree it."

It was just as well that Lionel needed to swallow. He took a sip of tea to steady his voice. "The rest of your family might disagree."

"I don't care. Being the king has some advantages." Bertie's smile faltered. "Though I'll never be able to tell my wife about this. She'll accept my sharing a bed with you, but she'd never understand. Would yours?"

"She would think I was mad if I tried to explain." While Myrtle's reaction was as likely to be disbelief as distress, Lionel had no wish to hurt her -- nor, if he were to admit the truth, to share something so private between himself and Bertie even with her. Of one thing he was more certain: "My family's much smaller. Loyal subjects, all. They'd welcome you as a member."

"Knowing that makes me very happy." Bertie's eyes grew suspiciously bright. "Thank you, love."

"You know that. You could turn up in my parlor and build model airplanes with my boys any time you wanted." Lionel knew that if Bertie let those tears fall, he'd be back to bawling himself. "Don't cry, you know I can't bear it."

"I'm not...just..." Bertie shook his head, then cleared his throat. "I can think of no higher honor from your family."

"They always would have. I thought you knew. I must warn you that the middle one is a bookworm and will mock you if you ever make a mistake. And the eldest is always out chasing some girl." As often happened when he was alone with Bertie and thought of his children -- or as often happened when he was alone with his family and thought of Bertie -- Lionel felt a sharp sense of dislocation, as if he were living two lives at once. Their wives had had only the most formal of conversations, and Bertie had only met Lionel's sons in passing, just as Lionel had only met the princesses at formal events and on rare occasions when they'd come in just when he was leaving.

"I would be happy to invite all of them to the palace. Though you know it's a lot of fuss -- fancy clothes and rigid manners. Would they consider it an honor, or a burden?"

"Certainly at honor, at least once or twice. After that, they might rather be playing tennis." Lionel tried to picture Valentine sitting through a formal dinner without being allowed to sneak a book under the table. "I didn't know if it was easier not trying to mix up our families in --" He waved a hand around vaguely. "In this."

"In us, you mean? They already are. I don't mind doing whatever is necessary to keep them happy." Bertie's eyes were no longer damp with unshed tears, but his lips were pressed together, his expression somber. "No one ever prepared me to become king. I know I must do a better job of preparing Elizabeth to follow me -- to understand both the privileges and the responsibilities, and the limits of each. You know it's not a life I would have chosen. Yet you've said all along that we couldn't be here like this if I hadn't been the king, and I know you're right. My position gives me a great deal of protection. Knowing that makes it bearable."

"I want you to tell me that it's more than bearable." Leaning across the table. Lionel took his hand. "That it means something to you, being so important to so many people, even if it isn't easy."

"I know I must sound very spoiled when I say this, but nothing in my life has ever felt easy. Except falling in love with you -- that was the easiest thing I ever did." A smile briefly lit Bertie's face. "You showed me that I could be king, even when the press was calling me dull and dim-witted."

"The press looks for a story it thinks will sell papers. They sold you out to make your brother look better." Squeezing Bertie's fingers again, Lionel shook his head. "When you came to my home, after all those weeks when you wouldn't speak to me, you said that if you failed in your duty, David could come back. You must have known already that nobody wanted him back. They all wanted you to wear the crown, not him -- the newspapers, the Cabinet, all of Parliament. They thought you were the better man for the job. I only hate that you sound so unhappy about it, still."

"I won't be unhappy if you'll have me over sometimes." Bertie's smile was a bit nervous. "Or if you'll come to me. At the palace, and here, as often as we can. Promise me."

"Do you really believe I'd tell you I'd marry you if I didn't intend to try to sneak in every moment with you that I can?" That made Bertie's smile spread across his face, and Lionel returned it. "It is because of our circumstances that we met and recognized this for what it is. I feel very lucky."

"We're both very lucky. You're the one who taught me to speak, so it seems fitting that you're the one I want to tell how much your love means to me. I'm yours, and I take my vows very seriously."

"Sweetheart, you taught me to say things I'd never even thought before except on stage as characters in plays. You taught me to say things I never thought I'd feel, although now it feels as if they've always been a part of me -- as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen."

"As always you know just what to say, beloved. You make me feel holy." Bertie tugged him up from the table. "Come back to our bed with me."

"Yes. Anywhere. Everywhere." Lionel accepted his kiss, breathed against his mouth. "Did we rule out the South Pole?"

"I don't think so. Only for igloos. We'll erect a snow hut and sleep in it under piles of blankets."

"I'm sure the penguins will welcome us. And I'll cook fish for you over an open fire."

"I'd be completely happy with you there, you know that. I fall in love with you all over again any time I think about what life would be like if we had never met."

"Don't think about it any more." Lionel placed a finger on Bertie's mouth for emphasis. "Didn't we agree that it was our destiny to meet, and to love each other like this? And tomorrow, under a rose arbor, in a kilt if that is what you wish, I will pledge to love and cherish you forever with everything that I am, to care for you and follow you to the ends of the earth."

"Whither thou goest, I will go?" Bertie's lips turned up against Lionel's finger. "Then we can pick the roses and strew petals on our bed, if we make it back to bed before I have to pull you down and have you at once."

"There won't be any hurry." Sitting, Lionel pulled Bertie onto the bed. "I'll be yours for an eternity of kisses."

"Nothing less than eternity would do for us." With a shiver, Bertie turned, wrapping his arms around Lionel, looking into his eyes. "My husband."


	3. A Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Whither thou goest, I will go."

A thump on the porch at dawn woke Bertie, though he had slept lightly, half-rousing whenever Lionel shifted, with the sense that something wonderful was about to happen. It took him a moment in the early morning to remember what that was. Then he lay still, looking up at the wooden ceiling of the cottage, and let happiness fill him until he thought he might float up off the bed toward it.

It was madness, of course, even if it was the most glorious kind of madness, which put a smile on his face so wide that he thought Lionel would surely blush and shake his head if he opened his eyes to see Bertie so overjoyed about something so preposterous. It was still possible that Lionel would wake up embarrassed at having made such extravagant promises and find a way to joke them away. Lionel had said that he would never ask Bertie to forswear his vows to his wife or his country, but perhaps it was Lionel who felt that he would be forsworn if they spoke vows to one another, even if the words were entirely private between the two of them.

If that were the case, Bertie told himself, then he would accept it with the same calm resignation with which Lionel had accepted every limitation on their friendship that Bertie's titles and position made necessary. It would be enough that Lionel had wanted to, the way it had been enough that Lionel toyed with the idea of running away with him, even though they both knew it would never happen in this lifetime.

Even so, while Lionel had been in the loo the night before, Bertie had telephoned up to the castle to ask his butler to have his kilts sent over, pretending he wished to practice speaking in Scottish dress costume. Undoubtedly, they were waiting on the porch now. He'd also left a specific set of instructions for dinner, including the hour at which it should be brought out to the cottage. If Lionel did want to go through with it, then Bertie was determined to make it as romantic as possible.

Lionel shifted and raised his head. When he saw Bertie's grin, he matched it. "Tell me I didn't dream everything you said last night."

"You didn't dream any of it." Bertie bent down for a good morning kiss. "I want to marry you and call you my husband."

Color flooded Lionel's cheeks, but he didn't stop smiling. "As soon as possible," he agreed.

"In our garden, so we can come back to this bed. In a kilt, if you were serious about wearing one, so that I can see your legs." Swinging his own legs off the bed, Bertie stood, stretched, and strode to the door, peering out carefully in case any of his staff was still about. They certainly didn't know he had slept in the nude. A small trunk had been left by the door, and Bertie tugged it inside.

Lionel had risen and was tugging the covers straight on the bed, fluffing the pillows so that no one looking could tell that two men had slept there. The staff had not set foot in the cottage since Lionel and Bertie had been on the grounds, not even to clean -- they'd left laundry bundled on the porch -- but since a maid would be inside today, a certain amount of prudence was called for. "Are you sure any of your kilts will fit me?" Lionel asked, giving his own bottom a rueful slap.

"It might not pass muster at a parade, but it will get us to the garden and back." Bertie opened the trunk, smiling. "I think one of these even represents Australia -- Captain Cook's colors or some such."

Chuckling, Lionel peered into the trunk. "Just pick something that matches my eyes."

Bertie ended up choosing by size rather than color, since the leather buckles were only adjustable within a couple of inches. His hands trembled when he tried to work clasp, making it rattle.

"Take your time. Deep breaths. I don't want you passing out." Lionel was smiling, watching him, fumbling with the hose and belt and sporran, which were probably all unfamiliar to him.

"If I do pass out, it will be from happiness. You'll have to keep kissing me to keep my strength up."

Setting down the flash for his hose, Lionel obeyed, rubbing a foot over Bertie's. "If I keep kissing you, that will not be the only thing that stays up."

"Then this will be the perfect wedding, with both grooms hard under their kilts. I can't think of anything more romantic than that."

"I can't think of anything more romantic than hearing you use the word 'wedding' like that." Lionel stood back to admire him, one knee on a chair, still trying to wriggle the flash into place. "Did you really have knock knees? Your legs are very handsome."

Blushing, Bertie nodded. "You've made my hands shake. Will you help me with this pin?"

Lionel bent over, frowning. "I've very little experience with this sort of pin and it goes awfully close to your crown jewels..." He tugged the fabric at an awkward angle, up and away from Bertie's body, sliding the pin through in a position that would have earned him a demerit in a school dress review, but securing the front of the kilt. "You look magnificent."

The mirror in the loo wasn't going to be long enough for Bertie to get a good look at himself, though the kilt felt safe enough to walk across the meadow. "Let me give it a good swing -- that's the only way to test it."

"But I can see your knees when you do that. You realize that when I see your knees, I can't stop thinking about getting between them?"

"You'll make me weak in the knees if you don't stop saying things like that."

"I'll hold you. I'll always hold you." Lionel's breath caught, his smile fading as his lips quivered. "I have to keep making jokes and talking about naughty things or I'll burst into tears."

"Oh, Lionel, I'm going to be bawling the entire time." They were both sniffling already as they reached for each other, clinging briefly, knees bumping beneath the kilts. Bertie had shed no tears on his wedding day to Elizabeth -- he would liked to have said that it was because he'd been ecstatic, but in truth he'd been tight-jawed and terrified, clinging to control, forcing smiles for photographers. He kissed Lionel's cheek. "You won't mind?"

"As long as you say you love me as much as I love you, I won't mind anything -- not tears, not a rainstorm."

"Then we'll hold each other and swear vows of love and our tears will be joyous." Bertie swayed with him for a minute before releasing him, though he kept Lionel's hand in his. He knew the staff would be precise in their timing when they arrived at the cottage, and he wanted to leave plenty of time for himself and Lionel to cross the open grass and reach the far side of the garden, where Bertie had given very specific instructions that no one should visit the entire day, as he wanted to rehearse outdoors. "Come, beloved, and marry me."

"I will. I will always say yes, in front of any earthly or heavenly authority." Despite the tears, Lionel wore the same irrepressible smile that Bertie didn't think had left his own face since he'd woken at daybreak.

Before they left, they unfolded the cot upon which Lionel was supposed to have been sleeping. There appeared to be no risk of a rainstorm; the day was glorious, sunny yet not so warm that they would be uncomfortable in kilts and high-cut coats.

Bertie kept Lionel's hand in his own as proof that he wasn't dreaming, and because he still felt as though, without something to anchor him, he might float into the air. Long summer grass tickled his legs and the Highland breeze tousled his hair as they crossed the meadow toward the formal gardens.

"We wouldn't have such weather if God did not approve," said Lionel. Bertie couldn't tell whether it was meant to be a joke or not. "Is it as you imagined? Or close enough?"

"You're here with me, so it is exactly as it should be. Or far better, because I'm not imagining it at all." The roses were in full bloom, both the white ones and the red ones, and the air was filled with their scent. Bertie had never dared to imagine this day in so much detail. "Is it what you would have wished for?"

"It's so much more than I could have dreamed. I think it's possible that we're not here at all, but in paradise. 'In Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom.'"

He didn't recognize the quote, but Bertie was sure it was Shakespeare. He tried to remember whether Shakespeare had ever written a wedding for a play he'd seen. "I feel as if I don't have enough words," he murmured, turning by the arbor, taking both of Lionel's hands in his. Sunlight slanted through the spaces in the vines. "Tell me what you would have me say."

"Only what you want to say, Bertie. Whatever will make you happiest."

"You know words are hard for me even when they're someone else's. I can't quote poetry like you do. I just want to tell you that I'm yours and ask you to be mine."

Lionel took a deep breath. His fingers were trembling in Bertie's. "It may not be literary, or scriptural, but I do swear to love you and cherish you and care for you and give you everything that I can." He paused, blinking back tears. "Whither thou goest, I will go. There, that _is_ literary and scriptural."

Bertie had to take one of his hands away from Lionel's to wipe his eyes before he trusted himself to speak. "To the ends of the earth," he whispered. "I pledge to love you with everything that I am and be a husband to you always. I will never let us be parted, beloved..." His voice caught in a sob, he knew he'd stammer hopelessly if he tried to continue in that vein. "Now kiss me."

It was, perhaps, the soggiest kiss that Bertie had ever received, and it was also perhaps his favorite, though he didn't know how he could weigh it against their first kiss, or the first one they'd exchanged in his bed before the first time they made love, or the one Lionel had given him in the tub just the night before when Bertie had first said he'd imagined getting married. They wiped each other's faces, laughing softly, and Lionel pressed his cheek against Bertie's, swaying perilously close to the thorns. "Forever, my love. I'll be yours for an eternity of kisses."

"Nothing less than eternity will do for us." The smile was back, pushing the corner of Bertie's mouth up, stretching Lionel's skin as he turned to kiss his cheek. "My husband. I hope you don't mind if I call you that over and over."

"My husband, my beloved, my precious one...I feel as if I'm quoting the Song of Songs when I'm speaking my heart to you. As if your name is already written there. I must have recognized it the first time you kissed me."

Bertie knew that he didn't know nearly as much about poetry as Lionel did, but he felt sure that this was better than any poetry. "Then I'll go on kissing you forever," he promised. "I love being the man who makes you feel all of that. I hope I'm worthy of it."

"My knees wobble every time you say 'husband' to me." After kissing him again, Lionel stepped back to look at him. "I want to lie down with you and make love to you until you're as weak with joy as I am."

"As ever, we want the same thing."

A familiar, much-loved, mischievous smile crossed Lionel's face. "If it won't get my head chopped off, let me pick some of these roses. I was serious about strewing our bed with petals. And I want to lie on the flowers that were around us while we spoke those words."

Grinning, Bertie reached up to help. The sweet scent of the roses filled his hands as the petals came off like loose feathers from a burst pillow. "I'll always think of this morning when I smell roses, and they'll be even sweeter. I'll have the palace filled with them and feel your presence in every corner."

"Just don't prick yourself on the thorns," warned Lionel, tugging back a vine. "I want nothing to mar this day."

They stepped back with hands full of petals and Bertie pinned up a corner of his kilt to hold them. "Now come, let's give ourselves to one another as a wedding present."

"There isn't anything I want more." Grinning at each other, they turned to head back across the formal garden, fingers sliding together. "I feel as if I could put my arms out and fly."

"We'll fly in each other's arms." Bertie swung their hands together as if they were children, lifting his head, feeling the breeze on his face, still smelling roses after they had stepped into the meadow. They walked the long way around the pond, not wishing to arrive at the cottage while any staff was still nearby, stopping to kiss under a huge old tree whose branches hung down low into the tall summer grass.

When they reached the steps, Lionel sighed dramatically, then chuckled. "I don't think I can carry you over the threshold."

"It would be worse than a pricked finger if one of us threw his back out trying." Giggling, Bertie tugged him up the steps. "Put your arms around me -- we'll waltz each other inside."

They danced, laughing, through the doorway, with loose petals falling from Bertie's kilt, leaving a trail into the kitchen. The staff had not only cleaned and brought food but set the table with candlesticks, which made Lionel laugh nervously. "You don't suppose they suspect what we've been up to?"

"If they do, they are discreet enough to keep it to themselves. I'm not the first king to have kept male company, and I'm certain I won't be the last."

He reached for the champagne, wiggling the cork, while Lionel uncovered the roast beef and potatoes. "They certainly provided us with enough food for a feast."

"Overcompensating for not being able to serve us up at the main house. Do you mind if we eat before we consummate the marriage?" The smell reminded Bertie that they'd skipped breakfast before quite a bit of walking outdoors, and his desire to make love at once became an amended desire to make love as soon as his stomach had stopped growling.

"I think we should appreciate the food while it's fresh." Laughing, Lionel added, "If anyone asks, you can explain that as a colonial, I have dreadful taste and prefer to eat whatever gamey meat we hunt ourselves." He paused. "Except that they've surely noticed that in all the days we've been 'hunting,' neither of us has fired a shot."

"That's because you've got it wrong. As an Australian, you prefer fish. You prefer to eat whatever skinny things we catch. We must have fished the lake barren by now." The cork popped, and Bertie laughed.

"Fish is the only thing I know how to kill and cook." Grinning, Lionel passed over a laden plate while Bertie poured the champagne. "Scandal averted. Being the king should have a few advantages."

"Many advantages. I doubt any other men in the kingdom who wish to marry have such a romantic private garden in which to wed." It felt odd to Bertie even now to think of men who loved other men, a category from which he had until recently considered himself superior and safe. "I suppose it's sad, really, for everyone else."

Lionel reached out to squeeze his hand before reaching for the gravy ladle. "I'd have wed you in a basement dungeon if I'd had to."

"I have one of those. Two, actually, though all the chains have been taken out. I think." As always, Lionel had known what to say to make Bertie smile. "I suppose I could have the chains put back in, if we're going to play naughty king and wicked doctor."

"I would love to hear you explain that to your staff." Laughing, Lionel raised his glass. "To naughty kings and wicked doctors."

Bertie clinked his own glass against Lionel's. "I'll tell them you have a new therapy that involves..." He waved his hand vaguely. "Something eccentric. As I've told you, they _expect_ me to be eccentric. They won't think I'm a true king if I like to do crosswords and listen to the wireless just as they do."

"Then you should be truly eccentric. Show up at the State Opening of Parliament wearing your great-grandmother's tiara."

Giggling, Bertie swallowed a bite of the excellent beef. He had been quite happy living on eggs, cheese, and fruit, but it was a lovely change to share a full meal with Lionel. "Most of the jewels are locked up. I'd have to have them brought out. I suppose they're afraid I may pocket one of the emeralds and give it to my lover."

"You had better not. I will be very unhappy if I catch you giving emeralds to any lover." Lionel tried to look indignant, but his expression as he tasted the veg changed to delight.

"Sapphires, then. They would look good with my husband's eyes." Bertie paused, setting down his fork. "If I gave you a ring, would you wear it? Something unremarkable like a signet ring, with my initials on the inside?"

Lionel set down his own fork, reaching across the table for Bertie's hand. "Love, this is all I want for a wedding present." He squeezed Bertie's fingers.

"I know, but I want to give you something. Perhaps something for both of us, where we could both have identical ones. If not rings, then a watch or a cigarette case..." Bertie caught Lionel's baleful stare. "You wouldn't have to keep cigarettes in it," he chuckled. "But never mind, because I do want a ring. Even if we don't wear them but keep them in our pockets. We can come back up here and go out to the garden and put them on each other's fingers. Would you?"

Swallowing, Lionel nodded. "I would treasure anything you gave me."

"Perfect." Lifting Lionel's hand to his mouth, Bertie kissed the palm. "When we get back, I'll have them made."

"Let me help pay for them. I want it to be a true gift to you, too."

With a happy smile, Bertie scooped up a forkful of potatoes and offered it to Lionel. "It will remind us of so many happy memories. I want to be able to look at it in the Palace and your consultation room and back at the castle in the winter when I need to give the wretched Christmas speech, and picture being in the garden with you today." Setting down his fork, he raised his glass again. "To getting snowed in here at Christmas so that we can't possibly leave for days and days. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

Lionel clinked his glass and sipped, eyes twinkling over the rim. "I will never have enough of having you all to myself. Or of pledging my love to you." He set down his fork. "Cake? Or bed?"

"Bed." The word was so distracting that it nearly made Bertie overlook the other. "We have cake?"

"With buttercream frosting, it would seem."

"I have a pastry chef who never gets to show off since his king was told he had a flabby tummy." Still, dessert wasn't nearly tempting enough to distract Bertie from what he really wanted. "Bed. I don't want to be too stuffed. The cake will still be there in a few hours."

Grinning, Lionel got up, putting what was left of the food inside the refrigerator. "I'll wash these dishes later. Now, bed." He reached out a hand and pulled Bertie to his feet, gazing at him appreciatively. "What rude and foolish subject would tell the king that he has a flabby tummy?"

"Some colonial, no doubt. The king did take it upon himself to do a bit of strengthening exercises. It was wise of the king's lover, that is, therapist, to encourage him."

Lionel's fingers tickled Bertie's ribs, making him laugh. "Feels like the king did a fine job. He must have been motivated to look fit without his shirt on." Already Lionel's fingers were loosening it, reaching for the buckles on the kilt. "No wonder I want to ravish you."

"I love it when you say ravish. And roger and bugger and fuck." Bertie was still giggling from the tickling. "Even when I know you're doing it to drive me mad."

"You're driving me mad right now. You know that when you say bugger and fuck, all I can think about is buggering your well-exercised arse. Like a French postcard come to life, only better, because it's you."

"This arse? The one just under this kilt?" Wriggling it for him, Bertie pressed close. "I've never seen a French postcard with two men, let alone a king."

"Neither have I. It isn't as if there's anyone on them who could compare with you." Lionel had managed to get Bertie's kilt half-open, and was fumbling with the other clasp.

"Wait -- the roses!" Laughing, Bertie carefully unpinned the bottom, catching wilted white petals which still smelled of the arbor. "We need to cover the mattress with these. The king wishes to make love with his husband in their marital bed."

"And the king's husband wishes to show the king his adoration." Lionel's fingers slid between Bertie's, tugging him toward the bedroom. They kissed in the doorway, pulling each other across that threshold, leaving a trail of petals that dropped from Bertie's fingers across the floor and onto the bed.

They undressed in silence, the cheerful mood of the meal giving way once more to the overpowering sense of joy that had kept Bertie feeling buoyant since Lionel had first suggested that they could make his fantasy of vows in the rose garden come true. "You've made me so happy, beloved," Bertie murmured as he sat on the bed, reaching for Lionel. "Thank you for saying those words with me. Especially for letting me say them to you."

"I loved saying them. I love telling you that I'm yours. I love you so much." Bending, Lionel kissed him reverently on the forehead, and Bertie clutched him round the waist, trembling. "I want to make you feel it. Tell me what would please you most."

"I want my husband to make love to me. I want you inside me." Bertie knew that no matter how many different ways they found pleasure together, he would always want that, to feel connected so deeply within himself that he was sure nothing could ever sever such intimacy. He felt Lionel nod, and lifted his face for a long, meandering kiss.

"I want to kiss you everywhere. I want to get you ready with my mouth." Lionel's breath came faster, and suddenly he was pressing Bertie back on the bed, hands sliding over him. "You know that every kiss I've ever given you has been a confession of love? And every time we've ever touched like this, it's been a promise?"

"No wonder I never stop wanting it." Moaning, Bertie wrapped his hands around Lionel's back. "Your promises are precious to me. I will always want you for my husband."

"I've thought I must be mad to want you all to myself like this when you must be the king to hundreds of thousands of people." Lionel was kissing down his body, licking and sucking, his touch thorough and possessive. "A wondrous sort of madness."

Bertie remembered just that morning thinking that he must be mad himself, as mad as that earlier King George, though gloriously so, pursued by bliss instead of demons. "Shared madness, then, must be the best sort, because I've thought I must be mad to think of marrying you. I couldn't help it, though -- even after the first time we made love."

"The very first time?" Lionel gazed up at him. His eyes were dilated, the blue even more intense than it had been in the sunlight. "Oh, love, that's terribly romantic, not mad. All I could think after the first time was that I never wanted to stop making love with you, if it was possible."

"Making love with you has always felt like making a vow between us, at least to me. There's never been anything ordinary or purely physical about the pleasure it brings me. I loved you so desperately, I wanted to promise never to stop, if only I could beg you to do the same."

"You know you've never needed to beg." Lionel's mouth returned to its trajectory, moving over Bertie's belly, giving his prick a long, reverent kiss, then dropping lower. "I would promise you anything. I want to kiss you here, love -- right here where we make love --"

Bertie's head thrashed on the pillow as Lionel's tongue reached its destination. "Oh yes! Anywhere!" He was incoherent for the next several minutes, writhing, while Lionel kissed him and used his tongue to ease him open before he reached for the oil.

"Join us together," pleaded Bertie, watching him, even though he knew he didn't have to ask. "We need to consummate this marriage so we belong to each other in all the ways husbands can."

"I already do belong to you in every way I can -- my body is yours, my heart is yours, my soul is entangled with yours." Lionel was spilling oil over his fingers. "Just let me use some of this...not use, 'anoint' is a nicer word."

"'Make me a sacrament of your love.'" Bertie groaned joyfully as Lionel's fingers stretched him. They were communicating in grunts and moans before Lionel pushed inside him, though Lionel managed a breathless "I love you" even as he slid in deep.

"Lionel, oh, love!" When they had come into the bedroom after eating, Bertie had thought they would move against each other slowly, drawing out every instant of their passion, but it was quickly becoming apparent that he wasn't going to last that long and Lionel wasn't either. Giving in to the heat of that urgency, Bertie pushed himself against Lionel, whose hand brushed over his hip and grasped his prick. "Need you!"

"Yes, let me touch you..." Their hips moved urgently, rocking the bed, which bumped against the wall. With a soft shudder, Lionel groaned, "Any time you want. Going to be quick this time."

"Me too, I want this too much." Bertie would have uttered continuous endearments, but he could scarcely breathe. "Please, more!"

"You know I'll give you everything, my life -- oh -- " Lionel went still, his face contorting, though his hand kept moving on Bertie's prick. The wave crested over them both at nearly the same moment, with Bertie shouting inarticulate pleasure and Lionel chanting Bertie's name.

"Yes," Bertie whispered when at last he could breathe again. "Husband."

He heard Lionel clear his throat. "Never want you to stop saying 'husband.' It's even more wonderful than 'beloved.'"

"I love the look on your face when I say it. Like I can make you perfectly happy just speaking."

"You always could, and now I must kiss you again." With a soft moan, Lionel did so. "You look so perfect like this, under me, with rose petals all around your head."

"I'd stay right here always, if we could." Bertie thought that Lionel had never looked more perfect to him, either, smiling and clinging to him with an expression that seemed caught between tired contentment and astonished joy. "If only our pricks would cooperate."

A groaning laugh burst from Lionel's mouth. "I'll have to keep you beside me instead of under me." He shifted, carefully, lowering his weight to Bertie's side, and opened his arms. "Will you let me hold you? I want to lie here with the smell of roses on our skin."

"So do I." Eagerly Bertie pressed against him. "As long as I can hold you and see you smile. Husband."

"I can't help smiling when you call me that. I love you so very much. I want to deserve that name with all my heart."

"Never doubt that you deserve it." Bertie could feel his eyelids growing heavy, and Lionel's chin was drooping against his hair. "You gave me the voice to say it -- as a king, and as a man. I will love you always, I promise."

They slept, floating on rose petals, until the promise of cake and more kisses roused them once more.


End file.
